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A LIFE WELL LIVED 



IN MEMORY OF 
ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 



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ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 



A LIFE WELL LIVED 



IN MEMORY OF 
ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN 



.-5.^ 






nAAIPTON INSTITUTE PRESS 
1914 






BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

ON August 6, 1913, after a long illness, Robert G. 
Ogden died at his summer home in Kennebunkport, 
Maine. Mr. Ogden was born in Philadelphia in 1836 ; in 
1858 he moved to New York and all his business life was 
spent in these two cities. Memorial services were held 
in New York October 26 and in Brooklyn, Novem- 
ber 9, 1913. On these occasions addresses were delivered 
by Dr. Francis Brown, president of Union Theological 
Seminary ; Dr. Francis G. Peabody, vice president of the 
board of trustees of Hampton Institute ; Dr.S. C. Mitchell, 
president of the Virginia Medical College ; Dr. L. Mason 
Clarke, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Brook- 
lyn ; ex-President William H. Taft, of Yale University ; 
and Honorable Job E. Hedges, of New York. Three of 
these addresses, representing different parts of the coun- 
try, are presented in this pamphlet. 

In the death of Robert C. Ogden, Hampton Institute 
has experienced one of the greatest losses in its history. 
A member of its board of trustees since 1874 and president 
of that body since 1894, he has had much to do with the 
wonderful growth of this school, founded in 1868 by his 
friend, General Samuel Chapman Armstrong. 

Their friendship, begun on that day more than forty- 
five years ago, when young Armstrong, after a long jour- 
ney from his Hawaiian home, carried to Mr. Ogden in 
New York a letter of introduction, continued steadfast 
and unbroken until General Armstrong's death in 1893. 
And the result of that friendship— a lifelong devotion on 
Mr. Ogden's part, of his time, thought, money, and influ- 
ence to the type of education which his friend had given 
his life — is today shown in the success of Hampton and 



4 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

Tuskegee Institutes as exponents of that type of educa- 
tion—learning by doing and the development of character 
through self-help. 

No details of a large and absorbing business ever in- 
terfered with Mr. Ogden's annual trip to Hampton with 
a party of friends as his guests, who were asked to take 
part in the ceremony of laying the corner stone of some 
new building or invited to note the mute appeal of 
a foundation dug by willing hands but waiting for the 
wherewithal to erect the much-needed superstructure. 
These friends never failed to gain new inspiration and 
greater incentive to work for others, or to carry away in 
their hearts stronger faith in the work for downtrodden 
races, which in those days was to Hampton's founder a 
tremendous struggle against great odds. Never did Mr. 
Ogden fail him or his successor, and present-day Hamp- 
ton can never appreciate too highly the devotion of the 
courteous, kindly, generous-hearted man it has been 
accustomed to see moving about its campus year after 
year. 

In the fall of 1896, Mr. Ogden delivered an address at 
the opening of the Hampton Trade School in which he 
spoke of the new opportunity it afforded the Negro to 
hold his own, industrially, in the South. He always wel- 
comed every such opportunity, not only at Hampton but 
in the world outside. He was a true friend to the Negro 
and Indian races and to all other backward peoples. The 
graduates of Hampton count among their dearest memo- 
ries the words of fatherly advice they heard on Anniver- 
sary Day from the president of the board of trustees, as 
he sent them out to their life work. 

It is eminently fitting that, on account of Mr. Ogden's 
long devotion to the work of the Hampton School, some 
permanent memorial be erected to him there which will 
always associate his name with the institution. What form 
such a memorial will take will be determined later. 



ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN * 

BY FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY 

Formerly PJumraer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Univerity 



I WISH I might express in behalf of Hampton Institute — 
its trustees, its teachers, and its pupils— something of 
the love and gratitude there so deeply felt for Robert 
Ogden. Among the many public interests of his varied 
life none was nearer to his heart than the service of Hamp- 
ton, and nowhere was he more completely appreciated 
and revered. He was drawn to this care of the colored 
race by the irresistible magnetism of Samuel Armstrong, 
whom he had known and loved since Armstrong first 
reached this country from Hawaii, and many of the qual- 
ities of that chilvalric leader of men — single-mindedness, 
courage, self-forgetfulness, the complete and happy devo- 
tion to a great cause — were transmitted by the subtle pro- 
cesses of spiritual heredity to this loyal friend. " I never 
gave up or sacrificed anything in my life," wrote Armstrong 
in the touching memoranda found after his death, and 
after having apparently sacrificed everything to serve a 
lew colored boys and girls. The same unconsciousness of 
sacrifice, the same gaiety of demeanor amid difficult du- 
ties, marked each step in Mr. Ogden's self-sacrificing love 
of Hampton. The most self-distrustful or disheartened 
teacher found herself sustained by his beneficent smile ; 
the most blundering or timid pupil stood more erect in soul 
as in body as his erect and gracious friend returned 
salute. The chill of January softened as by the sudden 



* Address at the Ogden Memorial Service at the Central Presbyterian Church, New 
York, October 26. 1913 



^ 



6 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

coming of spring in Virginia when on some winter morning 
Mr. Ogden unexpectedly appeared at the school. General 
Armstrong died in 1893, and in 1894 Mr. Ogden became 
President of the Board of Trustees of Hampton, of which 
he had already been a member for nineteen years. Dur- 
ing these last twenty years the administration of Hampton 
has steadily leaned on his discretion, foresight, and devo- 
tion. Many consecrated lives and many generous bene- 
factions have been wrought into the work, and Mr. Ogden 
would be the last to claim as his achievement the expan- 
sion of Hampton's opportunity. With the most modest es- 
timate of his own part in its service, he had the happiness 
to see, under his administration, its buildings multiplied, 
its standards advanced, its staff of teachers strengthened, 
and in the twenty years of his presidency its invested 
property increased eightfold, from $379,000 to $2,642,000. 

In 1899 a larger area of service opened before him. 
A few Northern and Southern men had met in 1898 at 
Capon Springs for a conference on education in the South, 
and the Principal of Hampton discerned in this gathering 
a new opportunity for co-operative deliberation. Mr. Og- 
den responded with enthusiasm to this new call and invit- 
ed a considerable company of friends to attend the sec- 
ond session of the conference, to procure a frank and fra- 
ternal interchange of views between the two sections of 
our common land. It was the first of a series of such 
journeys, which proved to be missionary enterprises for 
the instruction of the North as well as sources of new 
confidence and inspiration for the disheartened but indom- 
itable South. Many a guest recalls with permanent grat- 
itude the happy intimacies and high discourse of that 
memorable companionship, and dates from it a new faith 
in national unity, based on national idealism. To all who 
shared that happy fellowship there comes today the gentle 
memory of their genial host, tireless in courtesy, sleepless 



A UFE WELL UVBD I 

rill all Others slept, yet ever aware of the larger mission 
involved, and looking past the recreation of the hour to 
the grave problems of reconciliation and education which 
lay beyond. 

Consequences even more conspicuous and far-reach- 
ing have followed from these surveys of the South. 
At the Conference this year in Richmond, the United 
States Commissioner of Education did not hesitate to af- 
firm that both of the organizations which have done such 
unparalleled service for American education— the South- 
em Education Board with its program of encouragement 
for the South, and the General Education Board with its 
vast operations in all parts of the country, for education in 
the universities, the secondary and rural schools, and for 
national sanitation— may be traced in their origins to these 
meetings over which Mr. Ogden presided, and in whose 
development he had so dominant a share. Many influen- 
ces have conspired to accomplish these great ends, and 
many minds have been stirred by this national opportunity, 
but it is most touching and impressive to remember today 
that the new call came to at least one leader because he 
had already committed himself to the care of Hampton, 
and had been touched by its spirit — the spirit not of sacri- 
fice, but of privilege and love — so that among the causes of 
a better educated and more healthful America there may 
be named, in its own modest, yet verifiable, place, the lov- 
ing service of the least fortunate and least honored of our 
population. 

We turn back then today with affection and honor to 
this life and ask it to teach us how to live and how to die. 
We hear in these days much of the spirit of commercialism 
and materialism in our modem world, as though business 
life were a form of warfare and piracy,where the unscnip- 



t A LIFE WELL LIVED 

ulous win and the honorable lose. But here was a man 
of large and exacting cares, buying and selling, organizing 
and building, with energy and foresight, yet maintaining 
among these tumultuous obligations an interior quietude of 
spirit which illuminated his very countenance, so that— 
as was said of Moses — "he wist not that his face 
shone." Laurence Oliphant once said that the greatest 
need of England was the need of a spiritually minded man 
of the world — a man who could live in the world, sharing 
its responsiblities, accepting its methods, yet detached 
from it and superior to it, as one who makes it an instru- 
ment of spiritual ends. Well, here was just such a man, 
needed in America as much as in England — a spiritually 
minded man of the world, knowing his world and master- 
ing it, yet more intimately knowing himself and mastering 
himself, with the power of a spiritual mind ; gaining the 
world without losing his own soul. What is the secret of 
this habit of mind ? On what terms may a man of affairs 
apply himself to them without loss of his own soul ? It is 
written, " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," but it is 
also written, " Make friends of the Mammon of unright- 
eousness." Is it possible to be a friend of Mammon with- 
out being a servant of Mammon ? May one serve God 
through the Mammon of unrighteousness ? 

No clearer answer could be given to these searching 
questions than is given by this life which we affectionately 
remember today. Its first admonition is this : Keep busi- 
ness itself clean. Purify the sources. Prepare to meet 
thy God, not on some distant Judgment Day, but each 
week, downtown. No prodigality in the giving of money 
can atone for criminality in the making of money. The 
elementary test of the Christian character under the con- 
ditions of the modem world is not in one's giving but in 



A LIFE WELL LIVED 9 

one's getting, not in one's church but in one's office. 

The second teaching is this : Attach yourself to a 
great cause, lift your eyes from your desk, enlarge your ho- 
rizon, Hve in a large world, know how the other half lives 
This is not only the way of philanthrophy, it is the way of 
self-discovery. It is not only the helping of others, but 
the saving of one's own soul. The self-centered life inev- 
itably shrivels ; the self-forgetting life naturally expands, 
until modest capacities and limited gifts may bloom into 
leadership, power, and even genius, under the sunshine of 
a compelling and expanding cause. That was what hap- 
pened to this man. The consecration of his powers en- 
riched and enlarged them. The great cause created in him 
wisdom and statesmanship, and even touched his lips 
with eloquence. He was among us as one that served, 
and that proved his right to lead us all. 

There remains, finally, the condition of efficiency 
which was most marked in our friend. It was the power 
of a simple, uncomplicated, and consistent religious faith. 
Speaking of Armstrong in the first Founder's Day address 
at Hampton, Mr. Ogden said, "Only upon the high spir- 
itual theory can we explain the power of the life which we 
are now considering." The same high spiritual theory is 
the key which unlocks his own character. It was said of 
Count Zinzendorf, the protector of the Moravians, that he 
could ride the wildest horse in his father's stable, and 
when asked how he could be at once a Pietist and an ath- 
lete, answered, "Only he to whom earthly things are in- 
different can be their master." The control of the physi- 
cal was a witness to the spiritual. Courage came from 
above. The spiritual mind dominated the animal world. 
There was the same source of tranquillity, assurance, and 
patience, in the life of our friend. He had surrendered 



10 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

himself, and so he had found himself. He came not to do 
his own will, but the will of Him who sent him, and so his 
own will grew firm and sure. He was indiflferent to power 
and fame, and so he won the greater distinction of being 
loved and mourned. Crushing sorrows met him, but his 
own burden grew lighter because he took on himself the 
burdens of other lives. It was written of old, "He hath 
made all things beautiful in their time ; also he has set 
Eternity in their hearts." That is the story of this mod- 
ern life. Each event was beautiful to him in its time be- 
cause he had set Eternity in his heart. He had heard the 
great word, " I am come not to be ministered unto but to 
minister and to give my life a ransom for many ; " but it 
was, to him, not a summons to sacrifice and resignation so 
much as a call to privilege and joy. 

I shall never forget going one day into the great busi- 
ness establishment which he had created, and mounting 
from floor to floor through the busy crowds until I came at 
last to a little upper room. There, above the noises of 
trade, a dozen of the busiest of business men sat in quiet 
deliberation concerning great projects of national welfare, 
and interchanged their dreams of the better America 
which they saw, not by sight, but by faith. It was a symbol 
of religion in the twentieth century, of a faith known by its 
works, of a service which was perfect freedom, of the 
spiritualization which is still possible for men of the world. 
One thought of an upper room above the bustle of Jerusa- 
lem, where the Master said, " I have given you an exam- 
ple that ye should do even as I have done to you." Nor 
was the Master himself absent ; for it was in His name 
that these men met, and it was to them also that He said, 
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, 
there am I in the midst of them." 



ROBERT C. OGDEN'S LABORS IN THE SOUTH* 

BY SAMUEL CHILES MITCHELL. Ph.D. 
President of the Medical College ofVirginis 

THE projectile power of personality was happily set 
forth in the results of the labors for the South of 
Robert C. Ogden. It is instructive to study his plans for 
the improvement of public schools, for the betterment of 
farming, for the enrichment of rural life, for racial adjust- 
ment and social progress. It is pleasing to tabulate the 
statistics that show the increase in school revenues, in the 
attendance of children, in the efficiency of teaching, and 
in the moral support given to public education during 
the past decade in the South. But unless we regard all 
of these achievements as simply bodying forth the dynamic 
force of personality, we shall not interpret aright this edu- 
cational renaissance, so far as our leader affected the 
results. 

Mr. Ogden's personality was contagious. He be- 
came a center in organizing constructive friendships. 
When he began his labors in the South for universal edu- 
cation, there were isolated workers in the several states 
unacquainted with one another, without any large view of 
the general task, and without an interchange of common 
experience. His presence instantly caused all of these 
workers to leap together, just as atoms form a new com- 
bination in the laboratory induced by the presence of a 
single new element. He had a rare faculty for the dis- 
covery of men and of their aptitude for social leadership. 



* An address at the Ogden Memorial Service at the Central Presbyterian Church, 
New York, October 26. 1913 



12 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

Surpassing even his joy in the discovery of talent was his 
delight in opening up a career for a man of this sort to de- 
ploy his power. His eye seemed to rest upon every work- 
er, and all of us shared in the inspiration and strength 
that his sympathetic interest daily imparted. 

The great thing, however, about Mr. Ogden was not 
merely his sagacity as to the way in which to do the things 
that were really worth while in the national life, unerring 
as his sagacity was in the choice of men and measures. 
It was not even his passionate love for people, and 
especially people disadvantaged and in need. But the 
great thing in him was his faith in the capacity of men to 
grow, his faith in the essential goodness of the human 
heart, his faith in the subtle potency of reason, when train- 
ed and rightly directed — in a word, his faith in man under 
the influence of truth and love. It was this structural 
faith that sustained him in his great labors, that enabled 
him to overcome all barriers, and that swept him forward 
with a purpose that moved majestically, like a force in 
nature. 

I can never forget the first time that I saw him, when 
he stood upon the platform at Hampton Institute, giving a 
fatherly message to the graduating class of Indian and 
colored youth that stood before him. He seemed to 
breathe into the characters of those people his own large 
spirit of faith, encouragement, aspiration, and spirit of 
social service. My thought of Divinity became clearer 
and more concrete as I listened to his words of wisdom 
and of love. 

His philanthropy took naturally the form of a structural 
purpose; namely, to achieve for the South through the train- 
ing of children and through the process of social growth, 
results which all other means, including war and politics. 



A LIVE WELL LIVED 



had been unable to produce. The chief evil of slavery- 
was not economic nor political, but mental and moral. 
Slavery tended to gag the South. Its sole imperative was: 
Thou shalt not think. Hence this movement sought to 
revive discussion, to interpret in terms of education all 
the factors in the life of the South- " Democracy is gov- 
ernment by discussion," says Woodrow Wilson, and the 
principle implied in this remark was invoked in the South. 
Future-heartedness marked the movement from the be- 
ginning. It was forward-looking. It cherished the past, 
to be sure, in order to draw thence strength for the tasks 
of today. The word education does not begin to cover 
the complex bundle of activities surging in this movement. 
It developed in the South a party of progress, a platform 
for frank discussion of present-day facts. It called forth 
a body of literature surcharged with social and moral 
energies of transforming power. These structural pur- 
poses bespeak the statesman rather than the schoolman. 
Mr. Ogden was a statesman, a state-builder after the order 
of Horace Mann, Gavour, and Gladstone, all of whom 
put their trust in truth and relied upon the subtle force of 
growth to achieve great national ends. They knew full 
well that " in the long run the forces go with the virtues." 
Mr. Ogden was the greatest benefactor that the South has 
known since Appomattox. 

Sir Horace Plunkett, while sitting in the British Par- 
liament for eight years, discerned that England in apply- 
ing for centuries political remedies to Ireland's economic 
wrongs had failed. It occurred to him one day that it 
might be well to apply economic remedies to Ireland's 
economic wrongs. He left his seat in Parliament, went 
to Ireland and began to improve the farms, to sweeten 
the homes, to establish co-operative dairies, and to enrich 



14 A WELL LIVBD LIFE 

the life of the people through efficient schools, libraries, 
and social gatherings. A humble program, to be sure, 
but it is remaking Ireland — something that eight centuries 
of " blood and iron " had been unable to do. 

So in the South the strong wind, the earthquake, and 
the devastating fire swept by. God was in none of these, 
but in the still small voice that whispered an electric mes- 
sage to the heart of the child and strung with energy his 
arm for the achievement of great social and national ends. 
I believe that it was given to a business man to hit upon 
a sounder principle for economic progress, racial adjust- 
ment, and national integration than was vouchsafed to any 
politician or general in the annals of America. The con- 
quests of education alone are enduring. " One former is 
worth a dozen reformers." What a lurid glare is shed 
upon the follies and wastes of War and Reconstruction in 
view of the beneficent changes wrought by these silent 
forces of light and love. Never was more finely revealed 
the regenerative impulse in the heart of man than the 
signal results of this educational movement through the 
power of public opinion. In the case of millions of chil- 
dren, Mr. Ogden " thinks in their brain, throbs in their 
heart, speaks in their conscience, and makes their will 
leap like a resolute muscle to its task in fulfilling the will 
of God." 

While Mr. Ogden was a statesman in his grasp of the 
complex situation in the South, he was also a teacher, 
but a teacher through inspiring companionships after the 
order of Socrates and Jesus, He trained a group of social 
workers who even at this early time are displaying power 
in foreign embassies, in the Cabinet at Washington, in the 
Federal Bureau of Education, and in the international task 
of public health and sanitation. These men all account it 



A LIFE WELL LIVED 15 

among the highest privileges in their life to have felt the 
throb of his loving heart. 

He w^as by instinct a leader, a big brother of mankind, 
yet he delighted to follow. In many instances he took up 
other men's tasks and pushed them to a completion hardly 
dreamed of by the men who first conceived the enter- 
prises. At Hampton he took up the task of Armstrong. 
In 1900 he took up the task of public education in the 
South begun by J. L. M. Curry and the elect band of men 
who had met three years before at Capon Springs to con- 
cert plans for bettering the common schools. Mr. Ogden 
was daring in conception, but he was no less great in his 
appropriating power. Like a master builder, he made a 
wise use of all materials at hand. He entered into the 
vision that had come to such men as George Foster 
Peabody, Edwin A. Alderman, Hollis B. Frissell, Wallace 
Buttrick, Philander P. Claxton, Walter H. Page, Charles 
W. Dabney, and F. T. Gates. Mr. Ogden's sympathies 
grasped the situation in the South, emerging slowly from 
the waste of war and sorrow of defeat. He discerned at 
a glance what an aroused public opinion could do for 
progress through the common schools. His strategy con- 
sisted, not in money, not in the creation of new agencies, 
not in the attempt to impose ideas and institutions upon a 
people, but in his belief in the ability of the people of the 
South to do for themselves the things necessary for their 
own well-being. He coveted the privilege of sym- 
pathizing with the South in accomplishing these great 
social ends and in sharing and strengthening the impulses 
of the men who were bent on their accomplishment. 

He had no ambition to be the founder of an insti- 
tution. His name is identified with a movement, and not 
with an institution. He preferred to vitalize the nascent 



16 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

common school system. He integrated all his efforts 
with what the towns, counties, and states had already 
undertaken. The wisdom of this plan has been abun- 
dantly justified. He multiplied himself a million times by 
inciting the whole citizenship to get underneath the task 
and to energize the schools as a means of social progress. 
The principle upon which he thus acted is of wide and 
present application. Only the state, through the power 
of public taxation, is equal to the task of training all the 
children for the duties of citizenship in democracy. The 
main thing is to stimulate the people of a community to 
do well by their own schools. The principle of local 
taxation, the necessity of community control, and the 
power of public opinion were the three prime factors in 
his plan of educational campaign for the South. The 
fruitfulness of his labors sprang naturally out of the force 
inherent in these three principles. He built, therefore, 
not for a day, but for the ages. Instead of being able to 
point to a single school that bore his name, he could point 
to state systems of schools into which he had breathed 
the energy of his own great personality. 

Once as I sat in his office in New York City talking 
with him about educational plans for the South, I started 
to go, feeling that I had detained him far too long from 
his business. I can never forget the tone of his voice as 
he said, in a firm and manly way, beckoning me to 
remain seated, " This comes first. " The impulse of civic 
duty then borne in upon me was worth more than all 
the formal lessons that any college can give. He put 
life above livelihood. He revealed in his own career a 
fresh discovery of the divine order. "Seek ye first the 
kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added 
unto you." So unstintedly did he give himself in service 



A LIFE WELL LIVED 17 

to humanity that it seems irrelevant to dwell upon the 
fact that he was generous in giving of his own substance to 
the various causes that found a home in his great heart. 
Money, even his own money, means so little in all this 
as compared with the consecration of his life and person- 
ality to the good of others. He was a wise worker, but 
all of his plans displayed the dynamic of love, the motive 
force of faith. 

The progress of the South in education during the 
past decade is unprecedented. The figures are like a 
fairy tale. And yet the fine enthusiasm of the people 
surpasses by far the import of any numerical statement. 
Take, for instance, Georgia. In 1902 the State was 
spending upon its public schools $1,125,000. Last year it 
spent about $5,125,000. In 1902 the value of school 
property was $4,000,000 and within the decade it climbed 
to more than $11,000,000, an actual increase of about 
$7,000,000. Within the same period the number of school 
days rose from 113 to 140. During the same decade the 
increase in enrollment was 115,000 children. The actual 
increase in the per capita expenditure according to en- 
rollment was $6.18. Illiteracy among the whites was re- 
duced from 12 to 7 per cent and among the Negroes from 
52 to 36. This bare recital of the advance of schools in 
the single state of Georgia is an index of the beneficent 
changes wrought throughout the entire South by the co- 
operation of all the agencies at work for social betterment. 
About $20,000,000 was added annually to the revenues of 

PUBLIC schools within A PERIOD OF 10 YEARS. Siuce 1906 

about 1000 high schools have been established and de- 
veloped. The significance of these figures is beyond the 
power of words to express. 

In 1779 Thomas Jefferson drew out a liberal scheme 



18 A LIVE WELL LFVED 

for public education in the South, beginning with elemen- 
tary schools for all the people and rising through the high 
school to the state university. In accordance with the 
social structure of the South at that day, the only part of 
his scheme which was carried out was the apex; namely, 
the University of Virginia. It fell to a later day to build 
beneath that apex the solid body of the pyramid, con- 
sisting of the common schools as the base and the high 
schools resting upon them, all capped by the state univer- 
sity. This solid structure of public education is now 
rising in every Southern state. 

Aiming in the beginning at the betterment of the 
common schools through an awakened public sentiment, 
Mr. Ogden's purposes gradually widened until they em- 
braced all the activities making for progress in the South. 
He became in turn connected with the country life move- 
ment, with vast plans in the interest of public health and 
endowment of colleges; with the effort to make the 
state university the moral fortress of a democratic 
commonwealth ; with the causes of social unrest through- 
out the nation ; with the housing problem and the diverse 
evils growing out of industrial conditions in this country. 
The sweep of his activity in all these fields of human 
needs is suggested by his membership in the General 
Education Board, the Russell Sage Foundation, the 
Southern Education Board, the Jeanes Board, and other 
agencies dedicated to the common good. 

When George Adams Smith was asked how he 
accounted for the marvelous intellectual output of 
Scotland during recent decades, he said that he attributed 
it in no small degree to the fact that in the seventies Mr. 
Moody put every man and woman in Scodand to reading 
the Bible with fresh interest. The intellectual energi es 



A LIFE WELL LIVED » 

thus aroused had taken, to be sure, a direction in liter- 
ature, science, and religion undreamed of by Mr. Moody, 
who in this way imparted the initial impulse to the Scot- 
tish mind. 

We have been witnessing in recent months a similar 
renaissance in the South's constructive energies in the 
realm of statesmenship that is intoning a new day in the 
national life— a passion for fair play in politics, a search- 
light of publicity thrown upon all stages of legislation, a 
conviction that the whole is greater than the part, as 
shown by an embargo on all forms of class rule, the 
public conscience quickened to the point where it is sen- 
sitive to the appeals of right and responsive to the 
demands of progress, a desire to set our own house in 
order because of a clearer vision of the moral mission of 
America in bringing in an era of good will among mankind. 

I am inclined to think that many of these fine results 
are due to the stirring of the mind of the South during the 
last decade to serious thought and high endeavor as re- 
gards the rights of childhood, racial adjustment, social 
service, and the spirit of nationality. The South during 
this time has passed through an educative process of rare 
power. It has taken stock of untoward factors in its life, 
such as ignorance, poverty, inefficiency, sanitation, public 
health, and the twin forces of sectionalism and sec- 
tarianism. It has reviewed the past in contemplative 
mood. It has revived the memories of the constructive 
part that Southern men took in the formative period of 
the republic as well as recounted the facts in the later 
period of slavery, war, and reconstruction. It has studied 
the State's duty to educate the children for citizenship, 
to insure social order and to safeguard public health. 
These vital matters have been discussed frankly, not only 



2» A LIFE WELL LIVED 

in the great Conferences for Education in the South, but 
likewise in rural communities throughout the entire 
region. The discussion has divided families, furnished 
new views to editors, and has proved the pivot upon 
which many a political campaign has turned. 

It was impossible for the minds of millions of people to 
be thus stirred to the depths by elemental forces without 
the generation of large civic impulses and new ideals. 
This educational movement modernized the Southern 
mind, related it anew to the larger facts in the world 
today, and gave the people of the South a new sense of 
their latent power and the possibilities of co-operation for 
nobler ends. The decade marked a return to fundamen- 
tals, such as the fertility of the soil, upon which the home, 
school, and church depend ; such as the duty of the State 
to the child in a democracy like ours ; such as the relation 
of health to social progress and intellectual power ; such 
as the necessity of co-operation for the growth of 
community life ; such as the benefits to be derived from 
international experience in working out local problems 
touching the farm, school, sanitation, and racial adjust- 
ment. 

Mr. Ogden's career was as a golden clasp binding 
together the North and South in sympathy and co-oper- 
ation for the integrity of national life. He enlisted 
throughout the North men and women of initiative as co- 
workers in the tasks of the South. With him this noble 
band of friends would make an annual pilgrimage to 
the Conference for Education, study the facts in the 
Southern situation for themselves, and strike friendships 
there of enduring and fruitful character. It is not too 
much to say that Mr. Ogden in this way changed radi- 
cally the viewpoint of the North with reference to the 



A LIFE WELL LIVED 21 

South, rendering editors, publicists, and educators in the 
North sympathetic with the struggle of the South and 
eager to aid on all occasions the forces there making for 
practical righteousness. These kindly interlacing in- 
fluences of the North and South have perhaps done more 
toward reuniting the sections in a common purpose and 
like-mindedness than any other single agency in the his- 
tory of our country since the Civil War. 

Thus, in these two ways, Mr. Ogden's efforts in behalf 
of public education have a distinctly national bearing : 
First, by stirring to the very depths the mind of the 
South through the discussion of the vital facts involved in 
democratic education ; and, secondly, by knitting the 
sympathies of the leaders in the North and in the South, 
revealing their oneness in the fellowship of social service 
and in a common purpose embracing the good of the 
whole country. Never more happily was illustrated the 
meaning of that Scripture: "A Httle child shall lead 
them, " for it was the efforts to open for the child the 
door to a larger life that brought about these signal results 
in social progress and national unification. 

Mr. Ogden gave a new interpretation to the meaning 
of American citizenship. He had a scent for human 
need. He socialized his life and energies. Friendship 
was the essence of his working program. His hospi- 
tality was kingly and the list of his friends would make up 
the honor roll of America. There can be no pessimism 
in the presence of such an example. All problems dis- 
solve as retreating clouds before the outreach of such a 
personality. So long as exalted citizenship in the private 
walks of life reveal the sanity and sacrifice that character- 
ized Robert C. Ogden, there can be no doubt as to 
America's fulfilling the moral expectancy of mankind. 
" The character of the citizen is the strength of the State." 



ROBERT C. OGDEN, THE PHILANTHROPIST * 

BY WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT. LL.D. 

THOUGH the burden of many engagements would, 
under ordinary conditions, prevent my coming to 
Brooklyn this afternoon, I could not refuse the invitation 
to lay a tribute of respect on the bier of one whom I feel 
it an inspiration to have known, and an honor to be allow- 
ed to call a friend. 

We live in an age in which there is real encourage- 
ment for hope of the world's and the country's spiritual 
and moral improvement in the awakened human sympathy 
that manifests itself, not only in a greater public interest in 
promoting the welfare of those who have fallen behind in 
the race of life and are not sharing, as they should, the 
benefit of the general comfort, but also in the increased 
sense of personal responsibility on the part of those who 
now have the means of helping others, leading them to 
exert every effort to make these means effective. It is 
not possible, of course, that such a movement could acquire 
as wide popular support as this, without prompting some 
to take advantage of the fraternal sentiment aroused and 
turn it to their own selfish ends. Then there are others, 
not influenced by motives of either gain or political 
ambition, who love to do the thing which is the vogue, 
and who are busybodies seeking the limelight, and gratify- 
ing their vanity by activities which are not prompted 
especially by the true spirit of the good Samaritan. They 
make broad their phylacteries and are more interested in 
the personal part they play in these altruistic efforts than 

* Address at the Ogden Menorial Service in the First Presbyteriaa Church. Brookiy*. 
November 9. 1913 



A LIFE WELL LIVED Z» 

they are in the good they do for the proper and deserving 
beneficiaries of their activities. 

Then there are those who are made hysterical by the 
view that the millennium is at hand, that sin ought to dis- 
appear, that there can be no suflFering or poverty for which 
the world and society are not directly responsible, and 
cannot eliminate over night ; who focus their eyes on some 
foul spot and measure the progress of society by a con- 
stant contemplation of that particular rottenness to which 
their attention has been directed. They thus lose all sense 
of proportion with reference to the world in general, and 
the average good intentions of the present average mem- 
ber of society. They are not content unless all legislation 
and all charitable effort shall be concentrated to remove 
the especial evil that they in their earnestness think they 
have discovered. By nothing I have said would I minimize 
the importance that I sincerely attach to this awakened 
sense of brotherhood, this wider and intenser philanth- 
ropy, the existence of which everyone must recognize. 
With the plans for satisfying its practical aspirations, every- 
one must deeply sympathize. But in our admiration for 
it and our wish to make it useful and permanent, we must 
use some discrimination in our approval of those plans 
that are sane and practical and those which are merely 
fantastic, the result of misdirected enthusiasm. These 
unwise proposals and propaganda are merely ephemeral, 
as I hope and believe, and should not be allowed to divert 
the strong, healthful current of brotherly love that has 
manifested itself so clearly in the present decade. If 
encouraged, they will tend to obstruct it and end its use- 
fulness by ill-advised exhibitions of extreme emotionalism 
that must inspire ridicule and cynicism. Nothing will 
bring so quickly a benumbing reaction paralyzing in its 



24 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

effect. It constitutes the greatest danger such a real move- 
ment for good has to meet. 

We are living in an age of such hysterical outbursts. 
They are inevitable, I admit, but they must be shown to 
lack the sympathy of sensible workers in the field of phil- 
anthropy. Now one of the great conserving and conserva- 
tive factors in making clear such mistakes of misdirected 
enthusiasm and absence of common sense, and mitigat- 
ing their possible danger, is the influence and example ot 
a man like Robert G. Ogden, whose life has been devoted 
to the cause of the purest philanthropy, who did everything 
he did to accomplish the high, ultimate purpose that he 
had in mind— to furnish opportunity for self-help to an 
unfortunate race and a retarded section of our country. 
He brought to the task a business genius, a calm and quiet 
persistence of purpose, a clear judgment, a Christian 
character of serene purity, and an utter lack of self- 
exploitation. 

We are not able now fully and justly to estimate the 
value of his work for the education of the Negro and for 
education generally in the South, because he was taken 
from us in the doing. We do not know much of what he has 
done, but we do know its great value. His plans, how- 
ever, like those of wise men generally, were so broad, his 
look into the future was so extended, his ideas were so 
sane and practical, that not for many years yet can we 
weigh all the good that he planned and did, in its ultimate 
effect upon a section of this country whose social history 
has been full of difficult problems, and for a race of which 
this people must be trustees and guardians for many 
decades to come. 

It was my good fortune to be associated with Mr. 
Ogden in several of the many projects for the betterment 



A LIFE WELL LIVED 25 

of the Negro and of education, which claimed and had his 
interest and his effective support. When I speak of the 
elevating effect that association w^ith him had, I speak 
from personal knowledge. And the same thing is true 
when I speak of his clear-sightedness, his very great 
experience and knowledge, and his most valuable judg- 
ment on what was practical and what was not, in the 
objects to be pursued to bring about a betterment of edu- 
cational and social conditions in the South. 

One object of this meeting, I understand, is to com- 
memorate Mr. Ogden's relation to Hampton Institute. 
Whether I am right in this or not, certainly no feature of 
Mr. Ogden's activities better deserves to be recalled and 
emphasized than what he did for Hampton. He 
did it because he knew that Hampton Institute was 
the mother of the movement toward the vocational better- 
ment of society, white and black, throughout the country. 
There began the plan to prepare men and women in their 
youth to do well the work they are to do in life, to fit 
them to get as much for themselves and for society out of 
their labor as the intelligent training of hands and facul- 
ties by actual trial will secure. I regret to say that in all 
the enormous sums given for philanthropy, in which we 
greatly rejoice, there has been some lack of clear per- 
ception by the donors of the very great part that Hamp- 
ton has played in the saving of an unfortunate race, 
and in furnishing opportunity for its self-elevation. 
Otherwise Dr. Frissell, the sane and saint-like successor 
of General Armstrong, vs^ould not still be obliged to 
spend most of his time and injure his valuable health in 
begging funds enough to meet Hampton's current 
expenses. Mr. Ogden knew this well, and greatly de- 
plored the fact; and one of the greatest blows that 



36 A LIFE WELL LIVED 

Hampton has suffered is the taking of Mr. Ogden from 
among us. When Dr. Frissell was himself recovering 
from a severe illness, which his untiring and exhausting 
activity in behalf of his institution had brought about, I 
know that he felt that the greatest affliction that could 
come to him and his cause was the loss of Mr. Ogden. 
In season and out of season, Mr. Ogden stood by him, 
stood by the work, aided him in securing the needed 
financial help, understood the burden he had to carry, 
and had that kind of deep but intelligent sympathy with 
the fight he was making that helps one in a great struggle. 
I did not come here to make an address. I have had 
no time to prepare one in the multitude of duties that 
have forced themselves upon me in a new vocation, but I 
have felt that I must say this much merely as testimony 
of an eyewitness. I cannot close without an expression 
of the personal love that the beautiful character and 
charming personality of Mr. Ogden awakened in every- 
one who was privileged to come in contact with him. 
His sense of duty as a citizen was not in the slightest 
degree dimmed or made less strong because he had also 
a wider sympathy for mankind; but there was united in 
him with energy and a knowledge of how to do things, a 
sweet reasonableness, an elevated enthusiasm, and a sane 
courage and hope that one can never forget. He repre- 
sented in the highest sense the real Christian gentleman, 
and it is no reflection on those whom he has left, to say 
that it will be many years before the world will look 
upon his like again. 



